ADA - Reassignment
kmaries
29 Posts
ADA is not my speciality so please help!
My organization has an individual that was hired to be a physician assistant for general surgery. This includes assisting in surgical procedures, on-call hours, and rounds among other various tasks. She has not been able to perform those duties for over a year now, but no formal documentation had been received until recent.
Her restrictions indicate that she can not perform any surgical assists that last more than 1 hour and that no on-call or rounds can be performed. There are next to no procedures that are under a hour so this department has been allowing her to do mainly administrative duties (no surgery, no on-call, no rounds)since this restriction came to us. She has not been performing a third of her original position.
Of course, now the director is indicating there are performance issues, but nothing has been documented or even communicated to her.
They want to do something with her because they need a PA that can take on the surgical, on-call and other duties. However, the department can not get another position approved. She has been receiving surgery pay in her PA position this entire time which is well above what a normal PA would be getting due to the nature of the duties. Her director would ideally like to terminate her. Other than hiring an additional body there is no other way to accomodate her restrictions in this department.
I want to recommend moving her to another permanent PA position which will accomodate her restrictions. This position does pay less than what she has been making, but it will allow her the time she needs to be off of her feet and does not require her to assist in surgery. She is qualified for the regular PA position and all other vacant positions in her salary bracket require standing, on-call, rounds, and surgerical assists.
In addition, are we going to be in hot water because they have been accomodating this schedule for a year now and have all of a sudden changed there minds?
Any help you can offer would be much appreciated! ADA makes my head spin!
My organization has an individual that was hired to be a physician assistant for general surgery. This includes assisting in surgical procedures, on-call hours, and rounds among other various tasks. She has not been able to perform those duties for over a year now, but no formal documentation had been received until recent.
Her restrictions indicate that she can not perform any surgical assists that last more than 1 hour and that no on-call or rounds can be performed. There are next to no procedures that are under a hour so this department has been allowing her to do mainly administrative duties (no surgery, no on-call, no rounds)since this restriction came to us. She has not been performing a third of her original position.
Of course, now the director is indicating there are performance issues, but nothing has been documented or even communicated to her.
They want to do something with her because they need a PA that can take on the surgical, on-call and other duties. However, the department can not get another position approved. She has been receiving surgery pay in her PA position this entire time which is well above what a normal PA would be getting due to the nature of the duties. Her director would ideally like to terminate her. Other than hiring an additional body there is no other way to accomodate her restrictions in this department.
I want to recommend moving her to another permanent PA position which will accomodate her restrictions. This position does pay less than what she has been making, but it will allow her the time she needs to be off of her feet and does not require her to assist in surgery. She is qualified for the regular PA position and all other vacant positions in her salary bracket require standing, on-call, rounds, and surgerical assists.
In addition, are we going to be in hot water because they have been accomodating this schedule for a year now and have all of a sudden changed there minds?
Any help you can offer would be much appreciated! ADA makes my head spin!
Comments
Regarding formally re-assigning her...yes. A reasonable accommodation under ADA may be re-assignment fto antoher position in which she can perform the essential duties. And the position may be a lower level position, with lower pay. BUT, that type of accommodaiton is usually the last to be tried. In other words, oits an accommoditon of last resort when all other possible accommodations aren't reasonable and effective, and would result in undue hardship.
Thank you!
Kris
I guess if the condition is severe enough it may impair to a significant degree her ability to stand, walk etc., which are considered to be major life activities. But get the medical information for that and how it relates to her job.